


In Restless Dreams

by write_light



Category: Southland
Genre: Hallucinations, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_light/pseuds/write_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>When the Santa Ana winds blow, you learn just how close you are to the edge.  John Cooper discovers that he's already over the edge and falling.</em>
</p><hr/>
            </blockquote>





	In Restless Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-slash, implied/imagined.  My first _Southland_ fic, kicking around since just after John woke up next to Cesar.  Combines elements of 3.02 "The Winds" and 3.06 "Cop or Not". 
> 
> ETA 11/1/13 I miss this show so much. I wrote a companion piece for this fic after the finale aired, called "[Shed a Tear](http://archiveofourown.org/works/850040)". Hope you like it.

 

  
_1st Night_

The first night of the Santa Anas is the worst – nobody could ever be fully prepared for the dust and the steady moan of the wind, not even the natives.  The winds bring agonizing dryness that remakes LA into the desert it truly is. 

Gusts beat against the house all night, thrashing trees and turning branches into taunting fingers that triggered the security lights.  The branches made obscene gestures on the wall in John's bedroom, and he finally fell asleep while getting flipped off by his shrubs.  It made sense to him.

***

The blood trickled slowly, drying along the edges as it ran, soaking into the hot fabric of the pillowcase.  John was dead tired, but then again, it was 3:39 a.m. – he had a right to be asleep.  The nightly ritual of slow shifting and even slower resettling kept the angry gods of his back locked in quiet slumber, and now was his chance to escape into sleep. 

He woke late with his eyes sunken and dry.  He was alone in the large bed.  He was shaking, still, from dream images that lingered behind the lids - lids that refused to open.  He rolled to his right side and sat up without even thinking and his back screamed, taking his mind off the steel wool in his eyes.  He stumbled to the small bathroom and leaned heavily against the small sink, for once not icy cold against his crotch.

Each eye drop was a small torture; the chemicals stinging, the blood vessels cringing back, red laced over the little white that remained.  He contorted his face to get the stinging drops to go in and his nose started bleeding all over again.    

"Shit."

He grabbed for toilet paper and wadded it into his nose, then caught sight of the red streak running from his nose across his cheek and vanishing in a dark smear.  He plodded back to the bedroom to find a large red stain on his pillowcase, and on the pillow beneath.

"Shit."

He threw the pillow and pillowcase at the wastebasket in anger and showered for 45 minutes.  When he was done and felt halfway rehydrated, he retrieved the pillow and turned it over, blood side down. 

_Time for work._

***

_2nd Night_

There was nothing left in that Tuesday; it was blown clear like his head after a day spent in the winds.  The pillow was hot, and John could feel the hard patch of dried blood when he slipped his hand underneath, hoping for a cool spot.  Sleep came earlier, and no dreams.

When he woke the next day, it was quiet.  Sunlight, but no wind, no dust in the air – the Santa Anas had stopped, and he had the day off.  This was good.  Cesar lay beside him, his broad, muscular back stretched out the way it had been the last time, his face hidden in the pillow.  The dirty blond fuzz on his neck glowed in the morning light in just the right way.  John sat up, leaning back on his arms, looking with confusion at the man beside him, a man with a buzzcut and-

"Did you dye-?" John asked, and Ben turned over sleepily.

"Did I what?"  Ben stretched out his arm and ran it over John's chest, letting his hand brush over a nipple before he slowly trailed lower.  His face sank back into his pillow, a sleepy and contented face.  "Wanna fuck?" he mumbled into the pillow.

John jerked away and felt the knives in his back; they woke him up for real this time.  Before he could look at the empty space next to him, his alarm clock screamed from the other side.  He lay there, panting to ease the pain or escape until it passed, wishing to God he could just bust someone who had the right drugs on them. 

He stood over the sink again.  It was still early, but the heat had never really abated, and was already rising again.  The mirror had a fine coat of dust and the winds blew harder than before, rattling the window behind him.

***

_3rd Night_

The worst Santa Anas don't stop when they should; they run on for days and then vanish, leaving the air motionless and your lungs unprepared.

The security light outside came on again, the fifth time since John had gone to bed.   Only four pills were left in the bottle by the alarm, barely enough for the next day and night.  His mind slipped into sleep anyway, ignoring his back and the headache that somehow escaped the pills.

The next moment, Ben was next to him in bed, sighing and turning away, silent now.  He would _not_ let Ben into his bed, no matter what.    His nose tickled and he felt the warm flow of blood down his face, over his hand, another pillow ruined.   He sat up and stared at the drops falling on his white sheets, and then at Ben, turned away on his side, round ass and thick thighs, his feet crossed awkwardly.  Blood spread out in half-circles, red across the white sheets, all along his back.  It spotted his pillow too, from somewhere beneath his head.

"Ben, get up!" he yelled, but it came out muffled.

The rest of the nightmare was a choppy mix of nudity, flashing red and blue lights, Nate and Sammy with endless nonsensical questions, and Dewey, somehow not getting it, not seeing how John slept with men, and that pissed John off.   John woke at 6:32 with a gasp and choked on it, coughing until his eyes burned with tears. 

He struggled with the back brace for a good five minutes that morning until it fit comfortably.  Patrol with Sherman was awkward, but not silent.  He talked about Dewey the whole time, and Sherman eyed him, concerned at his mania.

***

_4th Night_

Ben turned up again in his bed.  Naked.  Bloody.  Dead. 

The only difference, this time, was that John knew _he_ had done it.  The gunshot wounds, the blood, the dead partner, it was all on him.  His bowl of alphabet cereal agreed, even in the light of day, spelling out S – E – V – E – R with its last five letters before he tossed the bowl in the sink in anger.  He made sure he was awake this time, and then went back to clean up the mess in the kitchen, where the five letters were splattered against the porcelain.  The S stuck to the side and wouldn't wash down.

***

Ben had no patience left, not after three days of the winds, not after the drunken woman on West 45th had cut him with a broken vodka bottle, and especially not after John refused to touch him, handing him the first-aid kit at arm's length and retreating to the other side of the car until he'd bandaged himself.

"Since when are you afraid of blood?"  Sherman said at the stoplight that afternoon, gauze and tape over his wound. 

 "Not afraid.  You learn how to handle yourself better, I won't have to keep on top of you every minute of every day. "

Sherman stared out the window silently; John took off at the green just a little too fast, making the tires squeal.

"I'll drop you at County for your shots.  You won't need stitches."  

"Thanks."

On the way home, Ben out of sight, John deviated from his route and scored a bag of five pills in a dirty alley.  It cost him $150. 

***

_5th Night_

John woke up screaming.  His cock was so hard it ached, and he had his hand around it reflexively in a moment, as if to calm himself.  It blocked all thought, even the images of the nightmare, until he stroked his body free of whatever this was.  When he came, the rest of his Hell came back – the blood everywhere, the wind at his door, the ache in his spine that was worse than the knives because it wouldn't ever go away. 

He sunk his head under the shower spray, listening to the blaring news report of a massive fire in Tujunga Canyon.  When he was ready for the day, he looked up at the brownish sky, sifting ash down on his garden.  The sun was a dark red circle.  He called Laurie and she didn't answer for six rings.

"Laurie, I need-" 

"John, we've got two wards overflowing and our ER is turning people away – I don't have time for your-"

"I'm hallucinating."

 "See a doctor, John.  Stop taking shit you got in some dark alley and get your back taken care of."

 She hung up right there, cutting off the pandemonium of the hospital corridor behind her.

"Hallucinating? You sure?"  It was Ben, in shorts and a t-shirt, relaxing on his couch with the remote in his hand. 

"I don't take shit," said John, pulling the door shut behind him.  The smell of smoke was intense; it distracted him.  Behind the door, the remote lay where he'd left it, in an empty house.

***

_6th Night_

A day under a cloud of ash and flames had John fingering his gun in its holster.  He was grateful for the refuge of sunglasses.

"On your hands and knees, recruit."

"You don't want me on my knees, John, it'll kill your back," Ben said.

  "My back's fine." 

"You're a sick man, Officer Cooper," Ben grinned.

John slammed his drink down on the table and Sherman jumped.  He wanted out, before he vomited.  Sherman watched him go, hands in a half shrug of 'what the fuck are you doing?'

John was halfway to the door when he yelled at Sherman to get in the car and tossed his half-eaten sandwich in the trash. 

"Did we get a call?" Ben asked, irritated, looking back at the best fries he'd ever tasted.

"Get in."

  Ben repeated, shaping each word separately: "Did we get a call?"  

"We will.  A good cop gets ahead of the situation.  He doesn't sit dreaming in a fast-food joint."

***

John fell in and out of the same dream all that night, never quite getting Sherman on all fours.  It wasn't his place or Sherman's but some dream-vague location that was one big bed and a slippery floor that he couldn't brace his feet on.  He shoved Ben further onto the bed and slipped his cock between Ben's legs, rubbing it along the lightly hairy thighs, the warm balls.  The big cock that swung there brushed against it.   

"Did he ever forgive you?" a voice asked, and John's eyes popped open.  He was alone in his bedroom, lying face down on his stiff cock, unable to move.  His back spasmed and he screamed it all into the pillow.  After a quarter of an hour trying, he'd wiggled himself to the edge of his bed and one leg was ready to drop onto the floor.  Sweat ran down the back of his neck and hung on his chin, mixing with the tears, but he couldn't wipe away the itchy drops.  His nose had bled again with the effort, then clotted.

He tried lifting himself straight up with his arms and one leg.  After another few minutes, he was on all fours, shaking with the effort, one leg on the floor to keep him from falling.  Cesar fucked him like this and he enjoyed it.  His back seized up again and he stayed there, weeping silently, watching the minutes tick by on his clock, hearing the alarm blare and not being able to stop the noise.  Eventually, his muscles relaxed enough to let him slip his other leg off the bed and hunch his way closer to the screaming clock.  He bashed it into silence.

_No way to stand.  Come on John, straighten up._

One phone call and he was off duty for the day. 

***

_7th Night_

_Clipped._   Chickie said "clipped," but that meant nothing.  Bullets clipped arteries, bullets clipped vertebrae. 

"Ben clipped by bullet; Memorial Hosp ER."

The more he stared at the message on his phone, the less sense it made.  Sherman wouldn't be clipped by a stray bullet – none of his boots ever had been.

His phone buzzed again - it was Chickie: "Dewey OK."

"Shit."  He dropped the phone on the seat beside him. Hallucinating a partner in bed with you was bad, seeing a dead partner you killed was worse, but leaving him in Dewey's hands to train… He tossed back two more ibuprofen and the Vicodin he'd discovered between the nightstand and the bed while he was frozen there in pain that morning.

The hospital doors were a warm rectangle of light in the cool night air.  The valley could breathe again, all the smoke and dust wiped away by the ocean air.

"'Bout time you got here.  Call in sick and look what happens – I almost took a bullet for your cub, Mama Bear,"  Dewey sneered.

John shoved Dewey aside and headed for the emergency rooms.

"ER 4, on the left!" Dewey yelled.  "Ungrateful prick, see if I do you any more favors!"

The door to ER 4 swung open as a young nurse entered, showing John the scene. Ben lay on the white sheets, naked but for his underwear, his broad back and solid body turned away from John on his side, round ass and thick thighs, his feet crossed awkwardly.  Blood spread out in half-circles, red across the white sheets, all along his back.  It spotted his pillow too, from somewhere beneath his head.

John realized the nurse was holding the door open for him.

"He asked for you."

 

* * *

  



End file.
